Dream Job

So, there's this job I really want.

It just seems perfect.  They're looking for someone who specializes in precisely what I'm writing my dissertation about.  Not just a Latin Americanist who speaks Spanish fluently, but someone who specializes in the African Diaspora in Latin America.  Hello, that is SO me.

The place is a small liberal arts college, which is also so me because the emphasis in those kinds of institutions is teaching and at heart, I am and always will be a teacher.

The place is also on the East Coast and sits snugly between our families.

The place is also near a major metropolitan city but far enough away not to be smack dab in the hustle and bustle.

And, there's a little side story.  So, I came across the job posting, told myself that I was totally going for it, and then came across the posting again in a listserv for current and former holders of the prestigious fellowship I have now.  Soon after the posting went out, a member of the listserv who is a new hire at the dream job institution said, "Hey, if anyone is interested in applying, let me know, I was hired last year in the same department and we can chat about it."  I was like, um, me!  So, I sent him an email expressing my interest.  It also happened that he was going to the conference I just got back from and we arranged to meet up and chat.  It also happened that I was presenting at said conference and he agreed to come to my presentation.  In the end, we chatted, he had lots of positive things to say about the institution and the department and gave me positive feedback on my presentation.  It's not like he's on the search committee or anything, I mean, he was just hired last year, but at least he might put in a good word for me...maybe flag my application and be like, "Hey, I met her, I saw her present, she's also a recipient of the same prestigious fellowship I had, maybe we need to take a good look at her app."  Who knows?

But now, here I am, slogging away at my dissertation, having to apply to mad jobs while slogging away, and knowing that if I'm to land anything desirable in this competitive world of the academic job market, I MUST finish my dissertation.  No bones about it.

I'm trying to be open, trying not to drive myself (and my husband) crazy, and wanting to hope but not wanting to get my hopes up too high.  

If I could JUST finish.  Finish, get a job, and have a baby.  In that order.

First Conference Presentation as a Mrs.

I guess there's a first time for everything.

I'm in a major metropolitan city (where the pope just left from) for a conference from now until Sunday.  It hit me that this is the first time I've air traveled and will have conference presented under my new name.

Like, my first boarding pass as a Mrs. My first conference introduction as a Mrs.

I've decided to use my maiden name as my middle name professionally.  So, on my CV and papers and publications and whatnot, I'll be Firstname Maidenname Marriedname.  I like how it flows, truth be told.  I still haven't gotten any funny looks or comments about my new last name, though.  It absolutely screams Irishness.  Girl, how you get a St. Patrick's Day soundin name like that?

Can I admit something?  I am scared, I am uncomfortable, I feel inadequate, I feel underprepared, and I feel overwhelmed.  I can't explain how badly I want to stop feeling this way.  Everything seems to be screaming at me, You aren't ready!  You aren't good enough!  You're not going to finish in time!

I honestly don't know how I'm going to do it.  I don't know how this is going to happen.  There's more that I don't know than I do know at this point.  But what else can I do but keep putting one foot in front of the other?

The Internet Preachin TROOF Today

Am I in church?  I thought I was sequestered in a library carrel, tired, unmotivated, and unsuccessfully resisting urges to pro-crass-the-nation (I got that from my homegirl), but no.  The Don Miller blog and the Multicultural Listserv started preachin the Word of GAWD today and all I could do was shake my head like an old sanctified black lady who made some sweet potato pies for the silent auction muttering "My, my, my" with a hand held to my convicted heart and let dat troof settle into my soul.

Don Miller blog,"Why Change Can Be Good, Even When You're Not Ready":

Sometimes when we say, “I’m not ready,” what we really mean is that we’re not ready to succeed. And we’re probably right. But the new roles and opportunities that present themselves to us often won’t for us to be 100 percent ready to succeed. Rather, what we need in order to step across those thresholds is a readiness to struggle, learn, and grow. We’re not born ready to be successful professionals, spouses, parents, neighbors, and friends. We become those things over time, through practice and process, sometimes failing, sometimes winning, always persisting.

Preach.  Preaaaach!  Thankya Jesus.

Multicultural Listserv:

The worst thing you write is better than the best thing you didn't write.

Yaaaaas!  The devil IS a liya.

I am metaphorically forehead palming my dissertation and taking spiritual authority over it until it speaks in tongues right now.

After I take a nap, tho.  It is real out here, y'all.

Is this me?

Sometimes I don't believe this is really me.

Is this me?
Is this me who has a husband?
Is this me who's been married for four months now?
Is this me who's writing a dissertation?
Is this me who's supposed to graduate in May?
Is this me who's applying for jobs?
Is this me who's thinking about having a baby in the near future?

Sometimes I feel like I'm not really me.  I'm just someone who is passively observing what someone else who I'm not is supposed to be doing.

Like, when I was riding in the car with my husband back to our apartment tonight, I was spacing out (as I often do) and it occurred to me that the man sitting beside me promised to be with me for the rest of his life and that I promised to be with him for the rest of my life.  Lifelong promises, just like that.  There was a time when my life was without him in it.  Now, I have no idea what it would look like without him in it.  Riding in a silver Camry.

All that my mind is wrapped around is writing my dissertation.  It doesn't even seem like something I (if I were really me) would ever do.  But I'm miraculously doing it.  And not fast enough.

Is this me who wants to be a professor?
Is this me who wants a career in academia?

It seems like that's stuff for other people.  Other people do well-researched, serious stuff.  Stuff where they know just what they're doing and exactly what they're talking about and precisely what their plans are.  I just chance upon things.  I make it up as I go along.  It seems like I've lucked out more than diligently worked.  It seems like what I'm doing now isn't substantive.  That can't be true.  But it just feels like it.

What is it going to take to convince me that I'm going to be okay and that I must be doing something right?

My First Academic Publication as a Graduate Student

Hopefully this little guy will help me get one of those things.  You know, one of those whatchamacallits.  You know...one of those things productive citizens of society are supposed to have?  A, um...yeah, that's it.  A job.

Check it out here.  Especially if you're into diasporas and Africa and transformation and migration and stuff.

So...Week 4.

This is how it's going to have to be.

Writing a dissertation is seriously one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life.  Chapter 3 is due this coming Friday and I really need to pick up the pace.  For real.

On top of that, there's a little book review to revise and resubmit and there are already postdoc applications that are due soon.

I can't believe I've gotten this far with such reluctance to get things done.  Like, I'm the laziest "overachiever" there ever was.  I am so serious.  I've totally shut myself off of social media, I get up every morning at 5:45, I go work out, I get to the library between 8:00 and 8:15am, stay until 5pm, and I (try to) go to bed every night between 9:30 and 10:00pm.  I'm trying my best to regiment my life to allow writeyourdissertation to seep into my bones and consciousness, but still.  I still get super distracted (Pomodoro notwithstanding), I still stare at my cursor blinking for hours without any writing produced and I still question if I'm really cut out for this.

Whether I'm cut out for it or not, I'm going to finish.  I have to finish.  I have no choice.  I mean, I guess I do have a choice, but the consequences of not finishing are pretty darn undesirable.

This is just where I'm at.  In the thick of it.  This is all I'm going to be blogging about, probably, until it's done.  So...onward.

Week 3 of Hammering It Out

We interrupt this dissertation writing session for a quick update:

This weekend, I went to my hometown, primarily to attend this friend's baby shower.  I left hubs behind, because he preferred to stay home.  If we were going primarily to visit my parents, we would have left sooner.

My mom knew I was coming, but my dad didn't.  It was nice to surprise him. I went to church with my parents on Sunday and of course, the inevitable, "Where's your husband?  Whuut?  You're already leaving him behind?"  Ugh, please go sit down somewhere.  I jokingly told a few people we got into a fight, just to see their reaction.  Heh, heh.

But here's what I really wanted to tell: When I got back on Sunday night, I came home to a beautiful bouquet of sunflowers in a vase with a card from my husband telling me how much he missed me and how much he loves and appreciates me.  Super swoon.  There is nothing like the love of a sweet freckled-faced man with a dimpled smile.  I seriously believe my husband is the best husband in the entire world.

I just love spending time with him.  Riding the bus together in the mornings, coffee in my little to-go cup with our church's logo on it. Getting little visits from him while I'm working in my little writing hole for hugs and kisses and "I'm proud of you"s.  Taking lunch breaks with him on a bench outside the library, laughing at how a squirrel nearby darts around and nervously eats pieces of sandwich bread crust I throw his way.  Work a little longer and soon we'll be heading home on the campus bus, but today we're going to make a quick stop at the campus Creamery first.  Dessert before dinner.

Going to a baby shower has definitely brought about a resurgence of baby-on-the-brain-itis.  The fact that a colleague recently announced her pregnancy hasn't helped matters.  I even told hubs, "If all goes according to plan, next year around this time, that will be me!"  He smiled and said that it would be.  He is going to be the best dad, too.  I know it.  I have these visions of me with a cute little pregnant belly being cuddled and coddled by my husband.  Sigh.

Back to work.  This chapter is shaping up, but at this point, it needs to shape up a little faster.

And at the end of the first week of sequestration...

Here's what I'm learning that finishing a herculean task consists of:

Framing the task within parameters of structure and consistency.  The reason I'm waking up every morning at 5:45 am and leaving out at 6 am to then go work out for 30 minutes every morning and then arriving at my library carrel by 8 am Monday through Friday is so that I can burn "schedule" and "consistency" into my brain and consciousness.  It's not that I love waking up early or that I'm trying to lose weight.  It's just a thing I need to do.  I'm consistently getting up.  I'm consistently working out.  I'm consistently going to the library.  I'm hoping these things will translate into "I'm consistently working on my dissertation."  It's hard.  It's hard to stay focused.  It's hard to make the kind of progress I would be happy with.  But I'm making some progress every day.  That's what needs to be consistent.

A colleague introduced me to a productivity app that I'm going to try stick to called Pomodoro.  Each "pomodoro" is a 25-minute interval, which ends in a 5-minute break.  After 4 pomodoro/5-minute break intervals, then you get a longer 15-minute break.  It's a way to make yourself consistently work without feeling overwhelmed.  It's good for a person like me who finds it hard to consistently work for long periods of time.  But 25-minutes of consistent work at a time is doable.  And it gives you the option to skip a break if you're on a roll and then at the end of the 4 intervals, you get a longer break. Operation Pomodoro starts tomorrow.

I have the chance to personally interview and communicate with the author of one of the books I'm analyzing.  I wrote her and let her know that I'm excited about the chance to talk to her, but that I would like to have time to prepare first, and asked for her availability to perhaps conduct the interview via Skype.  I'm pretty pumped about it.  My adviser and I are discussing the possibility of bringing her to the university for a talk.  That would be pretty awesome.  We shall see.

Sequestration: Day 1

My new semester routine:

1. Get up and out the door by 6 am to make your way over to the Ramsey Center.
2. Jump on the elliptical for 30 minutes while you listen to audio of the Bible.
3. Get back and take a short, energizing shower.
4. Down a cup of coffee with a fruit/a bagel/oatmeal and take a multivitamin (if we're planning on getting preggo in about a year from now, gotta start getting vitamins and good stuff in me now.)
5. Get yourself together, grab your lunch (that you made the night before) and make it to the library by 8 am.
6. Sit your little self down in your library carrel and read/write/take notes/highlight/write down ideas/organize, do whatever you need to do to work towards one goal: Writing. Your. Dissertation.
7. Take a lunch break with hubby.
8. Sit your little self back down in your library carrel and repeat the actions in step 6 until 5 pm.
9. Give your mind a break, and make sure you get to bed by 10:30pm.

That's how it's gotta be, folks.  Ain't nothin to it but to do it.

Everything You Wanted

Another husbandless night.

I'm eating and watching trash when I should be dissertation reading.  There's something about my husband being gone that turns me into a sad bum.

But I watched this video of this girl who makes a list of all of the qualities she wants in a man, the producers or whoever finds a man who meets all of these qualifications, and she goes out on a date with him:

 Even after having every single qualification that she wrote down met, they still didn't click.

I don't know, there's just something equally hilarious and sad about that.  Like, he had literally everything she professed to want, but when it was presented to her, there were still reasons why she didn't feel they were compatible.

I found a list that I wrote when I was 16 and realized that my husband does line up with pretty much all of them:

1. "He has to be tall."  He is, I guess, around 5'10, which isn't basketball-player tall, but a good 4 inches taller than me.  And I can wear heels and still not be taller than him, which is all good.

2. "For some reason, I don't know why, but he absolutely must have long eyelashes.  It would also be nice if he wore glasses."  He has very long lashes and he does wear glasses.

3. "He would have this absolutely charming smile that would make you melt every time he flashed his pearly whites.  Dimples would be nice, too."  He does have a nice smile, and he does have dimples.

4. "He has to like to read."  Check.

5. "He has to have a passion for music, and an appreciation for all types. It would be cool if he could play the guitar (I love guitar!)--then he could make up guitar ballads about his undying love for me (just kidding)."  I really wasn't kidding, though.  He definitely has a passion for music, he definitely plays the guitar and he has definitely written ballads about his love for me.  He proposed to me with one.  When I wrote this 17 years ago, little did I know that I would one day also play the guitar and that playing the guitar would be what initially brought my husband and me together.

6. "He has to be understanding--he has to be sensitive to my feelings and realize that sometimes I say or do things that I really don't mean, and sometimes I myself may not understand why I feel a certain way, but he'll understand that, too."  This is so true.  I am emotional and sensitive and cry all the time and he is the sweetest, most understanding man ever about this side of me.

But here's what's crazy: If there were some other person out there who had all the same qualities that I claimed to want and maybe even need, there's absolutely no guarantee that he would have "clicked" with me.  I mean, my little teenage list aside, even if my "mature," 30+, single self had written a list like the girl in the video did and that man materialized right in front of my face, there would be no guarantee.  Everything you wanted is really not everything you wanted until you actually have a chance to want it in a flesh-and-blood person who also has a chance to want everything they wanted in you.  I know that's a little convoluted, but it's true.

There are things you think you want/need, but then there are things you never knew you wanted/needed that only come alive within a living, breathing bond between two living, breathing people.

The guy the girl in the video described up on the whiteboard was not a real person.  He was a conglomeration of ideas and characteristics.  Even if all of those ideas and characteristics could somehow become concrete (imperfectly, because the abstract can never be made perfectly concrete), there is, as the video showed, no guarantee that this concrete abstraction would or even could meet our needs, or as we like to call it, "click" with us.

This is another idea that makes me see a marriage as a sacred metaphor.  Great is the mystery of godliness.  Great is the mystery of what it is that makes what we think we want and need somehow secondary to something as ungraspable as another human being's bond with us.

Done! (For now.)

The first thing I've finally cleared off my plate are thank you cards for the wedding!  Woo hoo!  Excuse me while I get my praise on right quick.  Y'all don't even know.  Like, I feel like I just took my burdens to the Lord and left them at the altar and got delivered for the first time in my world-weary, downtrodden, Jesus-needing life.  I feel like I just got brought out of the miry clay and got my feet set on a rock to stay and got a song put in my soul today, tho.

My sweet, sweet husband helped so much.  He refused to let me do it all by myself, even though I kind of tried to, but he was insistent.  I really appreciate that about him.  I have this big-sister, I'll-handle-it mentality a lot of times that I'm learning doesn't really fly in a marriage.  Not for the long haul.  

We sent off the ones that could be sent off.  It felt so good dumping those 90 some-odd cards into the mailbox.  You will be thanked.  You hear me?  You sent us waffle makers and can openers and picnic baskets and planned bridal showers and lingerie showers and sent CHC (cold hard cash) in wedding cards to us and you think you gonna get away without being thanked?  Nawl.  Like I said, you will be thanked.  And you are going to read every handwritten word in those handwritten cards and you will smile and get a warm fuzzy feeling inside and you will go to bed and sleep in peace, knowing that finally, at long last, you have been officially thanked.

Now for local church folks, it'll probably take me a month to actually hand out the cards, but, hey, the hard part is done.

The second thing I've cleared off my plate is this blasted online class.  It is ovah.  It is finished and it has given up the ghost.  Got those finals graded and and those grades posted and those reports printed out and put in the big boss's box.  The last class I'll ever teach pre-PhD.  Yup.  But of course no college-level course worth its salt is without a last minute email from a desperate student.  Is there aaannnnyyyythinng I can do?  It's like, girl, you got a freaking A minus.  Go saddown with all that.  No, you cannot do any last-minute extra assignments.  Especially not after I've busted it trying to get your finals graded and get final grades posted on time.  The grades are in and they're staying in.  Like, I feel like it's kind of disrespectful and presumptuous to even ask that.  It's like, my friend, you have earned the grade that you've earned and that's that.  Why should I give you special consideration?

So now that those two biggies have been checked off, the road has been cleared for plunging head first right back into dissertation writing.  I'm planning to finish re-reading the novel of my next chapter this week, I'll take a little beach break with my husband and his family next week, and then, get ready.  I'm about to wear my library carrel out.  It's all nice and reserved, I got my books all nice and set up in the bookshelves and I even bought a little chair cushion from Bed Bath and Beyond to put on the library's ugly little hard wooden chair so as not to wear down my natural padding.  It is bout to go DOWN.

The Day of Things Broken

Yesterday was the last day of the lease on my husband's old apartment.  His former roommate had since moved out, moving on to bigger and better things as a new lawyer in a brighter tomorrow.  Unable to sublease, we'd just used it as a temporary storage for our wedding gifts and as a transitional place while my husband was getting settled in our new (well, new to him) (tiny) abode.

So, we rented a truck and started hauling our stuff out to then be deposited in a storage unit place in a podunk town about 15 minutes away.  When you live in a college town, storage unit places around town this time of year get snapped up.  Of course everyone and their grandmother was also moving out that day.  Although I had expressed it earlier, I was still nursing a bit of irritation at the fact that his roommate had deuced out without necessarily getting rid of all his stuff and sort of left it up to my husband to sort out.  I get that some of the stuff was mutually shared and bought (i.e. plates and kitchen utensils and their couch) but his bed?  His bookcase?  (We took the bookcase, tho.  He didn't want it.)

Anyway, you know how moving goes.  Well-laid plans with the best intentions that start melting in the sun and Georgia humidity.  I started out as a trooper but ended up sweaty, tired and irritable.  The turning point came when we were finally unloading our stuff into the storage unit.  A box which had a delicate item in it slipped and the item inside, an elegant white serving dish, was smashed to heart-wrenching pieces.  Tears sprang to my eyes and my husband apologized about 50 million times and I ended up making him feel bad and it was just a bad moment.  But in the end we just took the box with the broken pieces (and gift receipt!), put it in the car and hoped that maybe we could get a new one.  That was the first thing broken.

I got the new bookcase all nice and set up and was sorting through junk to throw away or things with sentimental value enough to keep.  In the process of moving things around, I dropped a little ceramic creation we made with the Young Married's group from church (before we were actually married, but we were included anyway). That was the second thing broken.

We went back to my husband's old apartment to do some final sweeping and vacuuming.  He produced a plate and serving dish one of our colleagues had let him borrow for his little CD release party a while ago.  I had planned to go but decided not to for whatever reason.  That was about a month before our initial coffee date.  So, in effect, my husband had borrowed and kept those things from before the time it took to meet me, date me, become engaged to me and marry me until now.  We had a good laugh about it.  We put them in the car. I drove the car and he drove the truck on the way to donate the beds.  Enter a weird driving person who kept putting on the brakes at weird times.  Just as I was about to get into a turning lane, homegirl suddenly stops in front of me for whatever reason, so I slam on the brakes.  Of course the dishes (on the back seat) fly off.  And one of them shatters on the floorboard.  That was the third thing broken.

Back at home.  Finally.  My husband is digging around for some boxes and/or bins to put his to-be-donated kitchen items into.  In the process, he drops a box of these little stone coasters with our initial on it.  I was planning to take those back to Bed Bath and Beyond because people got us like a million of them.  My husband apologetically emerges with pieces of one of the coasters...except...it's not his fault.  I actually broke that coaster a while ago when I was digging around in our little closet.  But I put it back in the box with the others and figured we'd take care of it later. And that was the fourth thing (still) broken.

Today, sore from our moving expedition, I thought about our reactions to things breaking and how it related to our marriage.  I was nearly crushed after the first broken thing.  It was a really nice dish someone had given us for our wedding.  And it was sort of my husband's "fault" since he was moving stuff around when it fell.  I got upset.  But what about the things that I broke?  Even something that didn't belong to us?  Even something that I broke a while ago and never said anything about?   He was calm.  Forgiving.

I realized that I could definitely stand to be a little calmer and a little more readily forgiving when things don't go the way I think they should.

And we took back the broken elegant white dish and got a brand new one.  I felt so badly for my unnecessary drama when the first one was broken.  I apologized over and over.  My husband smoothed down my hair, smiled, and assured me that it was okay.

Things I Did While My Husband Was Out of Town

1. Went to Target with all the Target gift cards we received.  I bought a little rolling cooler for the beach (in two weeks) and a sunflower-colored beach bag.  I can only find cute clothes/shoes when I don't have any money or gift cards to spend.

2. Ate leftover chicken poppyseed casserole and watched Buzzfeed videos.

3. Worked all night on a bibliography that I should have finished a while ago because I needed to finish it, I wasn't tired, and I needed to keep my mind occupied.

4. Ate a middle-of-the-night piece of banana bread.

5. Got in on his side of the bed not just because it's closer to the lamp.  Smelled his bottle of cologne and his stick of deodorant and looked at a little baby picture of himself he got from his mom's house when we went to visit over Christmas.

5. Tried to go to sleep, but, being unable to, read a couple of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie short stories.

6. Finished a short story that ended pretty depressingly, felt sad, felt cold, didn't feel like moving to turn up the temperature, cried into his pillow and still couldn't sleep.

7. Tried a breathing exercise I'd read about in one of those stupid "listicles" to help me fall asleep.  It didn't work.

8. Started thinking about babies again and how my father half-jokingly said we were "postponing" having one.  Mom I can understand, but not you, Dad.  Not you.

9. Woke up from a strange dream-filled sleep at 8 am.

10. Thought I'd lay back down just for a few more minutes and didn't wake up again until 10:45.  There's a morning wasted.

Two Months

So, Thursday was our two-monthiversary.  We celebrated with a breakfast of Chick-fil-a chicken biscuits.  Yup, totally went all out.  Some observations:

1. I sometimes struggle with an impulse to push him away when I don't feel like a great me.  It's like I want him to go away for a while until I'm back to being acceptable enough.  But I just can't do that.

2. The impending fall semester is staring me in the face.  It's going to mean sequestering myself in a library carrel while I eke out the rest of my dissertation.  It's going to mean beginning a job search that feels overwhelming.  It's going to mean not spending as much time with my husband because while I'm writing, he's going to be taking classes/teaching/researching/writing.  I know that once classes start, things aren't going to be the way they have been this summer.

3. Conversations with my mom have taken on a new layer that I'm trying to get accustomed to.  I can't explain what it is.  It's not awkwardness, necessarily.  It's a hesitation, an unsure dance that consists of trying to figure out the boundary between supportive and intrusive, between honesty and oversharing.  It's her trying to exercise restraint when her heart is spilling over with all the advice and experience that 34 years of marriage has to offer, wanting to say the right thing.  It's me wanting to talk to my mom like I always have, but trying to figure out how to do so with the awareness that someone else is intimately connected to me.

4. One of the things I'm trying not to allow to take residence in my brain is the fear that we will never gain the stability I'll need to feel comfortable enough to have a baby.  It's ridiculous, I know.  A perfect time or perfect amount of "stability" necessary to undergo any kind of life change simply doesn't exist.  And I have no idea what the future holds, so I'm trying to tell my brain to cut it out.  That kind of thinking doesn't do anyone any favors.

5. Sometimes when I look at my husband unnoticed (while he's asleep, working, or doing something that allows me to observe without being observed), I ponder what it is that made him decide that I was it.  What made him so sure?  We're different.  We were raised differently.  Our families and backgrounds are different.  How did he decide that he definitively wanted me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me?  When I ask him things like this, he laughs and says something sweet and generic, like because I'm a beautiful person or something like that.  But the fact is that there's not some specific reason or specific moment he can recall that he can point to as the reason or the moment, and that's how life is a lot of times.  There are a series of little reasons and little moments that add up to a life-defining whole.

Oh, Baby

No, we are not having a baby any time soon.  I always feel like warding off questions about kids with a crucifix as if they were vampires trying to sink their fangs into my exposed neck.

Why, then, is my brain being lit up with baby fantasies?

I know I don't want one.  Not right now.  It would just be too hard and too weird and just too much.  Ugh, knocked up/writing a dissertation/trying to find a job/maybe moving/still being a newlywed.  Just a jumble of stuff that would just be ugh.  My brain knows I don't want that.  Not for real.

But then I keep having these visions of myself glowing with maternal radiance and wearing these flowing maternity clothes and my husband being the sweetest husband in the world and taking care of me.  I imagine carrying this beautiful, fat, brown baby.  Curly, coppery hair, dimples (in the cheek like him or in the chin like me), and devastatingly long, dark lashes.

I imagine baby foods: applesauce, bananas, those grainy cookies they gum down until they're soaked through with saliva. I want to decorate my baby's room with a Curious George theme.  My baby is definitely going to be bilingual, we've already decided that.  My husband and I are both fluent in Spanish and plan to consistently use the language with our child.

I imagine my parents being the most happy humans in the world.  Finally.  A grandchild.  I know my in-laws would of course be happy, too, but my husband has older siblings who have already married and produced grandchildren.  My future baby (unless one of my brothers beats me to it, which, at this point, I highly doubt) will be my parents' first.

Even after so many questions have been settled, new ones always arise.  Who knows where we're going to be, where we're going to be headed, what we're going to be doing this time next year?  I still feel unsettled.  And I feel like things have to be settled before we bring a baby into the equation.  But then I ask, are things ever "settled"?

Sacred Marriage or Is Marriage "Hard"? Part II

A friend suggested the book Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas, so I downloaded it to my Kindle and started reading.  I'm already four chapters in.  The premise is not unlike something I've expressed in one of my earlier posts and that is that God intended marriage, rather than as a means of self-fulfillment, as a means of understanding our relationship with Him.

It seems that part of what makes marriage "hard" is loving another flawed human being and making a conscious choice to love this flawed human being every day, which in turn requires you to exercise self-discipline and requires you to examine your own flaws.

Maybe it's a good thing I married a little later than many people because by this time, I'm confident in saying that I don't have my expectations too high.  What I'm saying is that people get disillusioned because they go into marriage expecting their partner to "make them happy" and fulfill them in ways only God can.  I realize that knowing this mentally is different than putting it into practice spiritually.  But in the end, it would be unfair for me to expect my husband to bring me to a place of self-actualization, just as it would be unfair for him to expect it of me.

But here's what I'm still having trouble accepting: That one day the feeling of being "in love" will fade away.  Maybe it's true.  It's something I've heard and read many times.  That the "excitement" fades and you're left with something more "stable" and "familiar."  But I honestly feel that excitement is not really what makes me feel in love, and I don't think that stable and familiar are buzzkills.  I'm okay with the ordinary.  With routine.  What makes me feel in love are very simple things that aren't "exciting."  What makes me feel in love is seeing how he lights up when he comes home to me after a long day.  What makes me feel in love is when we hold pinkies in church as we're praying a dismissal prayer/pre-altar call prayer (I don't know how or why we started doing it, we just do).  What makes me feel in love is seeing him enjoy a raspberry-blueberry-banana smoothie I made for him.  I know that as we learn more and more about each other, we will become more and more familiar to each other, but why does that lead to a loss of feeling "in love"?

I have this picture framed and placed on our coffee table:

I look at how on-top-of-the-world we both feel in this moment, and I want to always remember it.  Treasure it.  I know I will not always feel the excitement of this day, but I want to always believe that marrying him was one of my best decisions.  We wrote our own vows and we have them taped to the mirror in our room.  Every time I look at myself in the mirror, I'm faced with my promises to him and his promises to me.  They remind me of why I decided to marry him.  That's what makes me feel in love.  Please don't tell me the delight of sharing my life with someone will fade away.  Right now, that idea is hard for me to believe or accept.

Is Marriage "Hard"?

I've gotten so many grim-faced warnings that marriage is so "hard" before getting married, it annoyed me, but I also have to admit it slightly worried me.  One of my FB friends posted this article. I really appreciated it and it made a lot of sense to me, giving a relatable analogy to explain the so-called "difficulty" of marriage.

But here's another admission: I think we're special.

What I mean is, I have this feeling that we're different than the people who've supposedly been there and done that and know how "hard" marriage is.  Maybe it's silly and naive and perhaps even a little self-indulgent, but that's sort of how I feel.  I guess I don't think that facing life married will be any harder than facing life single.  I faced life single for a pretty long time and sometimes it was hard and sometimes it was exhilarating, but most of the time it was somewhere in-between. I imagine marriage to be more or less the same.

Call me naive, but also I have this unfounded, fanciful belief that we possess above-average gratefulness for one another.  I cannot remember a day we haven't said "I love you" (several times a day) to each other since we started saying "I love you."  Even the times we've argued ended up in "I love you"s.  I guess we haven't had a super blow-up argument yet, but I wonder if we ever will.  I know, I know.  We're still in the honeymoon phase, right?

I guess I feel like we have above-average gratefulness for one another because we've both experienced really low points in our lives and we've both had past unhealthy relationships and we're just so glad to have found each other and are basking in the glow of a positive, healthy, caring, nurturing, loving, godly relationship.  I feel like we're both hyper-aware of not taking each other for granted.

I feel like I have the best husband in the entire world.  He's a delightful melange of handsome and sweet, sexy and mild-mannered, hard-working and creative, sensitive and resolute.  He loves to see me smile.  Going to Kroger with him.  Having a soul food picnic with him (barbecue chicken and pork loin, cornbread, collards, blackeyed peas, mac and cheese, baked beans).  Playing the guitar and tambourine and singing together near the fountain in front of our department.  Watching a movie on my laptop with ice cream sundaes.  Riding the campus bus together.  Reading our devotion together while we have our morning coffee.  Taking evening walks beside the train tracks.  I love sharing my life with him.

When I think of the "marriage is hard" warnings from time to time, it makes me wonder if one day the other shoe will drop.  If one day, I'll wake up, sniff the air, smell the end of our honeymoon phase, and then steel myself for the beginning of the hard days.  Part of me is waiting for the hard part to begin.  Part of me is wondering if we're living in a fantasy whose days are numbered.  Because, according to the experienced ones, marriage is supposed to be hard.  Right now, I feel like I'm falling more and more in love.

Inner Smile

I'm currently obsessed with this song.  The original comes from the soundtrack of one of my favorite movies, Bend It Like Beckham, and then I realized the band had done a soulful 60s remix of it.  I like it better than the original.

Everything about being in this particular moment in time, this Sunday evening, relaxing at home with a cup of tea, makes me smile.

Husband and I visited some friends for the 4th of July weekend, came back, silently but companionably unpacked our stuff and slipped into chill mode.  Except now I'm still in chill mode and he decided to skate for a while.  I have a skateboarding husband.  That makes me smile, too.

I've been kind of sedentary this summer.  Hunched over my laptop grading stuff for this online class, editing and doing other side projects...I can't gain even a smidgen of weight without it being noticeable.  I'm getting a little soft around the middle.  Better start doing some crunches and planks or people (those same "people" to whom I address passive-aggressive rants) are going to take it upon themselves to ask if I've got a bun in the oven.

I do fantasize about having a baby, though.  Even though in real life I am deathly afraid of having one right now.  But just the idea...what if I did?  The knowledge that I could realistically turn up preggo simultaneously thrills and terrifies me.

When we were in Pittsburgh last weekend, we went to church and during worship, hubs was holding his sweet little baby nephew.  Just the way that he was tenderly holding him made estrogen come running out of my pores.  I must have been looking at him with serious mother hunger in my eyes because a lady sitting in front of me who must have been observing us for a minute touched my arm, smiled and said, "I know that look."  For some reason, I felt like I had been caught red-handed.  Why is maternal longing something I want to hide?

I'm afraid to romanticize having a baby.  But I just can't help but imagine our baby possessing an otherworldly beauty, and I know that the baby will enter the world with SO MANY people loving the stew out of it.  Like, I don't think there will be a being more loved in the world than our baby.

But, back to earth.  There are dissertations to finish and jobs to procure.  For now, though, I smile.  I enjoy this little piece of peace.

Me, in my head, "In My Place"

In my place, in my place
Were lines that I couldn't change

Post-marriage family gatherings.  New nieces and nephews smiling, teeth coming in.  A preemie plumping up, he looks just like her brother.

What do you do on a rainy day?  We have Starbucks gift cards from my new sister-in-law.  I have online class quizzes to grade, discussion boards to check, oral exams to open back up in an effort to show professorial grace to students who have confessed and repented over email.

Last weekend was my family.  Well, it's our family, isn't it?  My dad's a big brother.  I get it, I'm a big sister.  Still bossy, wanting to be "responsible."  I have a little brother who's always a little brother in my head.  Even though the little brother is a year older than my husband.  Might as well get over it.  Uncle (dad's little brother), cousins, more cousins.  They were all at the wedding.  Back for a Father's Day family reunion.  This family weekend didn't end with bringing home leftovers for the road.  It ended in my dad opening up the church and baptizing his little brother.  My dad's a big brother.  He's the oldest, like me.

My dad must get over the fact that I am a married woman over thirty.  That's my daughter.  In the arms of another man.  Really?  As if my dad were my boyfriend and I left him for some other dude.  It's like, dude, you're my dad, and the "other man" is my husband.  Fact.  You married us. You signed the marriage license as the officiant.  Remember that?  It's like, do you want grandchildren or not?  How do you think they're going to get here?  It's not going to be because my husband gave me a long side hug.

This weekend is his family.  Our family.  A long road trip broken up with stops, snacks, punk rock and NPR.  I realized they're starting to feel natural.  He looks just like his brother.  When I saw his brother in the swimming pool with the kids, I thought, that's how he's going to be with our kids. Seeing the same things in his brother and his dad that I see in him.  Mannerisms, forehead shape, bespectacled and bent over digging out chocolate icing-covered brownies.

Curly-haired niece (former flower girl) and nephew (former ring bearer) on either side of me bringing book after book.  I read with voices and outlandish expressions.  They sit in rapt attention.  Okay now, give Aunt Chantell (they say "ant" and I say "ahnt," just like they say "pop" and I say "soda") a break.  But I don't mind.

This is what I wanted to say during our visit to the young adults' bible study that I didn't say but finally felt compelled to say at the end: The reason for marriage is for us to understand what a relationship with God is.  That's another one of those things I've heard before, but that I know now.

I'm used to singly feeling my feelings.  Just staying in my own head and letting things rage on there.  Cry if I have to cry.  Worry if I have to worry (which I don't have to, but...you know).  Do my thing and maybe call a friend and bother her about it.  But I have a husband now and now my feelings can spill out and affect him.  If tears run down my face and he's there, he will wipe them away with his own hands.  Marriage forces you to be vulnerable.

There's still a part of me that is afraid to be vulnerable.  There is still a part of me that tries to take on this too-big responsibility.  There is still a part of me which feels like I have some fixing up to do and some sorting out to accomplish before I can allow myself to be loved and accepted.  But that's where the truth of it is like what God is: I'm already loved and accepted.  It's already a done deal.

Very soon, I must deactivate my Facebook account for a long while.  There are so many voices and distractions and I have so much to do.  I feel like I've been squandering my focus and attention.  I have to re-prioritize.  I have to get out of my head, get words on paper and stop being afraid to be honestly me.

One Month Milestone

I've been married for a month already.  Really?  That was fast.

Husband's been going out of town doing fieldwork for his dissertation project (yes, already) so since he wasn't sure whether he'd be back before dinnertime, we had a monthiversary breakfast at this ridiculously good breakfast place.  It's actually the same breakfast place we went to when I met his family for the first time and the same breakfast place we went to the weekend he met my pops for the first time.  Come to think of it, later on that same day he proposed to me.  I'd already met all of his folks, he had finished meeting all of mine...what else was there to wait for, I guess.  Here's one thing I know about my hubs: When there's something he's decided upon or that he's working towards, he don't play no games.  Old boy put me on lock quick.  I ain't mad at him. 

He'll text me in a little while to let me know whether he'll make it back for dinner.  If he does, I'll cook a special one-monthiversary surprise.  If he doesn't, I'll have leftover chicken stir fry.  Win-win.

So, I'm teaching an online class...going okay.  Some technical hiccups, but so far so good.  I've got to stay on top of it.  Doing editing for my prof (nice extra $$) and small translation projects on the side (more nice extra $$).  But the one thing I MUST do has been getting lost in the sauce.  It begins with a 'd.' And it is the bane of my existence.  I just can't emerge from this summer with nothing done towards my next chapter.  Ugh.  I just can't.  

Here's something I realize.  Like, I've been wanting to get married for the longest time, and now that I finally am, I'm super happy, but it honestly feels like regular life.  Because it is.  Like, I haven't transformed into some kind of ethereal being or anything.  I'm still the same me.  It's just that I'm continuing to be the same me alongside my husband.  I'm not saying that our marriage hasn't taken some adjusting to and that it won't continue to take adjusting to.  But I'm saying I don't feel like this brand new, ultra-spectacular me that I have to get accustomed to being.  Getting married felt exciting, but it also felt natural.  It's almost like, my now-husband came into my life, and soon he just became a normal part of my life and I couldn't see my life without him being a part of it, so, naturally, I married him.  That's really how it feels.

Here's something else I realize.  Something else I've wanted for the longest time is to become a mother.  But now that the possibility of becoming one is very scarily stark and tangible and real, I feel myself doing some backpedaling.  I know I had said dat...ummm.  Yeah, I had said...see, I need to think about it, den I letchu know.  I want to have kids.  We both do.  But it's like, darn.  Bringing a tiny, defenseless little human being into the world is no joke.  It's not like we don't have support. My mother, for example, is salivating with grandma hunger.  She is going to be a ride or die grandmother.  I don't even want to think about it.  Seriously though, I'm really thankful we have such supportive families and church family who would be there for us 100%.  But what I'm saying is that I feel like if I have a kid, I am going to be turned inside out and exposed for the inconsistent, contradictory, insecure person I am.  All my anxieties are going to come spilling out of me like marbles because 1. I have the capacity to reproduce and I do not want to reproduce the worst in me, 2. I don't want terrible truths about the world we live in to steal my baby's sunshine, and 3. Having a baby is going to change my relationship with my husband.  

Just like getting married isn't all about a pretty white dress and new toasters, having a baby is not all about cute maternity clothes and getting one of those slings (although I'm super getting one because they look awesome, with the baby all wrapped up in it against the mom).  I'm totally okay with waiting.  I come from a line of fertile women and I'm still on the green side of 30, so it'll be quite all right.

Welcome to the latest edition of "Passive-Aggressive Answers to Annoying Questions"

So, how's married life going?

Really?  It's going horribly.  Oh, my God, it's misery.  It's SO hard.  I hate it.  It's the worst.  I mean, seriously.  Like, what do you expect me to say, other than, "um...good?"  Like, what other kind of answer is there?  It's going pretty much the way I thought it would.  There's a dude I love living with me who gets special privileges.  That pretty much sums it up.

Have you guys gotten into an argument yet?  Aww, you're still in the honeymoon phase, but you'll see...just wait!

Ugh!  Will you sit down and shut your unfunny mouth up?!  Ugh.  Number one, it's none of your big fat business whether we've gotten into an argument, first of all.  And secondly, like, do you really think we've never had a disagreement ever in the history of our relationship?  Please.  And it didn't stop us from getting married, did it?  Get outta here.  I cannot express how annoying it is for people to come around with this patronizing attitude as if we're just in some kind of blissful otherworld right now just obliviously floating around on a love cloud until the other shoe finally drops to jolt us into the grim, gray, harsh reality of "real life."  Get yourself outta my face with that.  Go saddown somewhere with your old wrinkled up boring spouse and your jaded marriage and let me enjoy my brand new, super hot hubs without your prophesies of the impending end of our honeymoon phase.

So, are you guys planning on having kids?

If someone asks me that one mo' gin, I swurr...like, get up out of my reproductive business!  Who died and made you my OB/GYN?  Seriously.  I mean, when and if we have them, are you going to feed and clothe them?  Are you going to buy their diapers?  Are you going to potty train them?  Are you going to set up their college funds?  Aight, den.  Plus, can we live?  Like, can we learn what being married means first before we start piling buns in the oven?  And on top of that, are you going to write my dissertation?  Are you going to give me and/or my husband a job?  Like, the aforementioned things are going to have to happen so that we can support these hypothetical desired children.  So, unless you're going to contribute any energy or money into facilitating my hypothetical children's arrival into the world, you 'ont een need to wurry bout it, tho.

-versary

This past Saturday was our two-weekiversary.  We spent it at another wedding, one of husband's professors.  So, we ended up seeing a bunch of other people in the department who also went to our wedding, still giving glowing reviews on how "wonderful" and "beautiful" everything was.

This coming Sunday is our engageiversary.  June 7 last year is when husband proposed to me.  Good Lord.  We were engaged for 11 months before we got married and dated 8 months before we got engaged.  Say what you will.  When it's right, it's right.

We've already celebrated our first -versary, which was our coffeedateiversary.  That's October 21, the first time we ever spent time together.  We went back to the same coffee shop, and it was probably the most beautiful, sweetest milestone I've ever celebrated.

The only -versary we haven't officially celebrated is our kissiversary.  Yes, I remember the exact date of the first time we ever smooched.  But some things must remain secret and sacred.  Plus, I don't want anyone to judge the time span between it and the initial coffeedateiversary.  Some people might think it's too long and some people might think it's too short and I'm just going to leave it to the imagination.

Name

I'm in that in-between stage where I am so ready to officially be Chantell Marriedname, but I can't move a muscle until that marriage certificate comes in the mail.  I changed my voicemail as soon as I thought about it.  "Hi, you've reached Chantell Marriedname, I'm sorry I'm not available right now..."

I'm in this amorphous state.  Like, if I write any checks from the bank account I've had since I've had a bank account, well over a decade, I have to sign them Chantell Maidename.  Anything "official" that I sign right now or anything that I own that has my maiden name on it will have to be that for now.  I'm only going to be a student here for another year, so do I have to go through the trouble (and expense) of getting a new student ID?  For the class I'm teaching this summer, I'm still Chantell Maidenname, because I was that when I was assigned the class, so that's the name the class is under.  I know my departmental mailbox is going to have my new name in the fall since I've made it public that I'm changing my name.  My FB name is that married girl's trifecta of Chantell Maidenname Marriedname.  That's probably going to be the name I publish under as well.  For little cards and things and whatever personal things I sign, I am totally Chantell Marriedname, marriage certificate in hand or not.

But when I graduate, when I get my diploma (in Jesus' name, by this time next year) will I have Chantell Middlename Marriedname, or Chantell Maidenname Marriedname printed on it?  I completed a good bit of this program before I even met my husband, so part of me wants to honor the me that did that work.  But my middle name is my middle name (and also my grandmother's name) and isn't that a part of the "me that did that work," too?

And what about my email address?  Will it still be partoffirstnamemiddleinitiallastname@gmail.com?  Or will I change it, too, to a married lady email address?  I've had the same email address for a super long time.  There's a part of me that just wants to keep it as is.  But if I'm planning to change my name legally, wouldn't it make sense to change my email address as well?  Sigh.

What Am I Doing? or The Commencement of the Gradual Transformation into My Mother

I blame the vacuum cleaner.

Ever since I got that thing, I have been obsessing even more than usual over specks on the rug.  I've also been wanting to wash everything.  Clothes, bedsheets, my husband's gym bag.  I want things to be clean and in its place.  I will not put the breakfast sandwich maker away until I am assured that every speck of stray food has been cleaned off, even if I have to dig between the grooves with a bread knife.

See, when my mom and dad moved into their new house, I made fun of my mother for being a maniac about keeping things completely unscathed.  If she discovered a scuff mark or if there were any moisture left behind on her counters...oh, Lord.  Even before then, she would start wanting to clean up at inopportune times, like, if we were about to go somewhere, she suddenly wanted to dust the side tables and water the plants.  Like, do you have to do that now?  Can't it wait?  But now, scarily, I realize that I understand.

The day I got that vacuum cleaner, I opened up the box, put it together like a G and the next day, I vacuumed the heck out of everything in sight.  I self-deprecatingly joked with husband about how obsessed I am with vacuuming and keeping everything spotless now, and he jokingly said, "Uh-oh, you're becoming like your mom," and it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Oh.  Snap.

Like, you see your parents as these idiosyncrasy-laden, yet lovable people and think you're worlds apart from them.  "Our lives are so different, Mom.  Don't compare things now to how they were when you first met Dad.  Gosh, by the time you were my age, you had three kids already."  Oh, Mom.  Eye roll.  But then you're faced with this feeling of inevitability, this worlds-apart-from-you momness slipping from between the cracks unbeknownst to you into your subconscious actions, inescapable, the momness ingrained in you, manifesting itself as a result of your Mrs-ness.  Before you can even ask yourself What am I doing?  you've already unthinkingly done it.

Today, I had to put our brand new comforter set on the bed, and I had to wash the old sheets (and therefore, I had to wash everything else that needed to be washed).  I had to do it today.  In the middle of fluffing out the new comforter and putting the new decorative shams on the pillows, I felt this mommy feeling.  I felt almost like I was watching myself go through these domestic motions with the same "maniacal" determination that I used to ridicule.  Like, someone was saying See? Now you see, don't you?  And all I could say in response was How else could I have known?

On the 10th Day of Marriage...

Settling in.  Still waiting for the marriage certificate to arrive.  That new shower curtain and those burgundy rugs makes the bathroom look almost palatial.  New toaster (4 slices!), new blender (husband's morning shakes), an electric can opener, a waffle maker, fluffy towels, and on and on.  Let me tell you: I sliced a lemon with a new knife so sharp it was like cutting with a miracle.  Jesus turning the water into wine with lemon wedges.  Bed Bath and Beyond go hard, tho.

Then husband put together our little three-tiered shower caddy like a little fix-it husband putter-togetherer.  And then drinking coffee out of our matching Mr. and Mrs. mugs.  And reading our little couples' devotional.  And going WalMart shopping and including his particular little likes: bananas, clementines, reduced fat Wheat Thins, unsalted pretzels, and I even threw in a Hamburger Helper for good measure.

I'm in vacuum cleaning heaven.  Shark.  Not the sharp-toothed water-dweller, the vacuum cleaner (and I just found out that husband says "sweeper" for vacuum cleaner) that has super suction, seamless swiveling, a lift-away feature for easier access along with attachments for crevices and upholstery that will bring tears of joy to your dust-despising eyes.

Leftover rehearsal dinner chicken parmesan.  Froze those buddies up before the honeymoon.  Come back, defrost, enjoy.  But most of all, leftover rehearsal dinner pumpkin bread pudding. That cream cheese icing on top, all gooey and good.  

Waking up, seeing him open those sleepy, little boy eyes (he looks like a little boy when he first wakes up) and an immediate smile spreads across his face when he sees me watching.  A freckled arm wraps around me and holds me close.  I notice the color of his freckles is the same color as my skin.  I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine.

0 Days

0 days.

So, this is my last blog post as a single woman.

Guess I'll finally have to change my blog's tagline.  "Newlywed girl meets postmodern world"?  Nah.  Doesn't have the same ring.

Part of my blog's theme heretofore has been the ups and downs of singlehood.  Being a single girl has been part of what's given my blog its particular character since I started it in 2005.  Now, 10 years later, here I am, packing for my honeymoon and not getting any sleep because I'm too nervous and excited.

While I'm beyond ecstatic about getting married and sharing my life with someone I love, I feel like it's the end of an era.

Here's to new beginnings.

5 Days

5 days.

Marriage license obtained.  All that's left to do is for Pops (officiating) to sign it with the power invested in him after the ceremony and abracadabra, we're legally married.  It was so weird.  Like, all this time wanting to get married and now when I have the license in hand, no turning back, I'm like...excited, but at the same time, not able to fully grasp it somehow.

I made a veggie pizza that is ridiculous.  Sauteed some green, yellow and orange bell peppers (on sale at Kroger), sliced up a tomato (on the vine) and along with the usual tomato sauce and mozzarella base, topped all my ingredients with a little bit of extra shredded mozzarella and crumbled goat cheese.  Ridic.

Still haven't even gotten started on writing my vows.  What am I doing?  My fiancé is a super duper vow writer, almost done with his, and here I am, a lazy sack of non-vow-writing bones.  I'm just praying that I get hit with a jolt of inspiration really really soon.

This is what I know.  It. CANNOT. Rain.  No, ma'am and no, sir.  All the nawls there ever were in the negative no of not.  It cannot.  It can NOT.  The 10 day weather report talking all this yang yang right now and I'm going to need it to stop.  I rebuke weather.com and its weather report being used of the adversary talking about some scattered thunderstorms.  Oh, no it ain't.  I shall believe the report of the Lord.  I claim clear skies in Jesus' name.  If ye shall ask anything in my name,  I will do it.  I am asking (for real) right now, in Jesus' name for no rain on my wedding day.

Here's to inspiration and clear skies!

10 Days

10 days.

Huge stack of final exams cackling at me, daring me to even start grading them.  I have a half-baked online class waiting for me to click, add, upload, screencast.  Students emailing me making up stories about how they neeeeeed to get into this online Spanish I class to graduate.  Really?  In no existing program at this august university does anyone need Spanish I to graduate.  Get outta here with that.

One last session of marriage counseling scheduled tomorrow.  Why does it make me so nervous?  Why is the idea of the ceremony still making me so nervous?  Why can't I peacefully exist and peacefully and gratefully usher myself into my blissful, perfect, prized life as a happy, blissful perfect wife?  Why can't I be gushingly happy and wake up every morning shedding tears of gratitude, thanking my lucky stars that I finally found a man and that he's so cute and that he's gonna be my BFF for life and we're going to be happy in our little happy happy life and have cute, fat little happy babies who are going to be SO BEAUTIFUL since...you know.

My wedding dress.  What is it going to look like?  Omigawd.  And the marriage license.  And what kind of shoes am I going to wear?  And, Dad, do you like this song for our father/daughter dance?  Are you guys going to sing? Omigawd.  Can you imagine me trying to sling a guitar strap over my wedding dress?  Please.  He'll play and sing, but I'm just going to sing.  And what are my colors going to be?  And can children come?  Oh, I'm so sorry I forgot to RSVP.  Can I still come?  Rehearsal dinner.  Rehearse and then dine.  Lingerie shower.  A shower of lingerie.  Omigawd.  There's the big day, but the big night is coming up, too.  Heh, heh.  Hint, hint.  Yeah, yeah, I get it.  You're so funny and original.  I'll go ahead and say it, since it's so funny.  Sex.  Wedding night = sex.  My husband and I are going to have sex.  We're getting married so we can have sex.  There.  I said it.

Announcement to my enlightened colleagues: Yes, I have made the heart-wrenching decision to succumb to the hegemonic clutches of the white, male, straight, privileged, racist, classist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, capitalist, colonialist, nationalistic, fascist, murderous, douchey, bromancified, American-speaking, fratboyish, beer-drinking patriarchy to change my last name.  I shall lay down my maiden name, the name of my truest self, the name that represents my authenticity as a real woman (even though it, too, was forced upon me by the patriarchy) and sacrifice it as a martyr to the cause of fully becoming a subservient sellout.

I don't want to just want my wedding day to come and be done with.  I don't want to want that.  I want to enjoy it.  I want to tell the contradictory, worrying, hyperactive, dramatic, obsessive part of my brain to calm down and shut up and chill out and please, just for once, let me live.

12 Days

12 days.

We've almost paid everyone we need to pay.  People are still secondhandedly announcing their possible intentions to come when the RSVP deadline was April 15.  We got galvanized buckets on sale for 50% off at Hobby Lobby to line the aisles with baby's breath and/or sunflowers.  I never imagined that buying buckets on sale would ever be even marginally tied to any sense of personal satisfaction.

We're writing our own vows.  I haven't even gotten started on mine yet.  Of course my guy is well on his way to finishing his, despite the many other papers and projects he's working on now.  He's such a poetic, creative soul.  I love that about him.  It's overwhelmingly endearing and super sexy at the same time.  I mean, I was proposed to with an original song and poem.  I'm sorry, but nothing can top that.  I am completely convinced that I have the best proposal story ever.  I have a creative side, too, but I'm just so...sort of floating around in the ether right now. I need to find the presence of mind to do it.  Soon.

I don't know why, but we're this close to The Big Day, and I still can't picture it.  Like, I still can't wrap my mind around wearing a wedding dress and walking down a grassy aisle on my father's arm.  I can't picture standing below a sunflower-entwined dark wooden arch with a lily pad pond in the background while we say our vows.  I can't imagine riding away in a horse-drawn carriage with my new husband.  All of these things are going to happen.  But it still doesn't seem like it is going to happen.  For some reason, in a way, I know they're going to happen, but it feels like they're going to happen to someone else.

I'm trying to enjoy this time and not let my temporary dissertation-writing hiatus get to me, but I can't help it.  I am a non-productive helium balloon while my fiancé is a well-oiled, paper-typing, project-finishing machine.  I've spent the past few days eating apple cinnamon instant oatmeal and watching BuzzFeed videos while he's been running statistical analysis of his "tokens" on R.  I know that once the wedding is over and we get back from our honeymoon, I will have to kick it into gear.  I'll be teaching an online class, writing an additional chapter and editing a manuscript for a professor.  I'm just in this cloudy otherworld right now and I just have to accept the fact that I'm in it and will continue to exist in it for a little while longer.

While there's a part of me that feels this nebulous almost detachment, there's another part of me that is experiencing this heady, adrenaline-laced sense of expectation.  Every time I look at him, I have this impulse to examine him to the point of abstraction.  How his freckles sprinkle over his upper cheeks.  A couple of eyebrow hairs that are lighter than the rest.  Long, dark lashes blinking slowly.  That scar on his right elbow.  His dimple on the right cheek.  His fingers are more than twice the size of mine.  I wear a ring size 4.  He wears a size 11.  He has this way of biting the corner of his bottom lip.  Somehow, each of these mundane details are like tiny miracles.

17 Days

17 days.

I went to one of our favorite coffee spots with my fiancé yesterday and ran into one of my old students.  No, not one of my old students since I've been teaching in my current program, but one of my students from my very first teaching job.  When I taught her, she was in middle school.  Now she's graduating from undergrad, is about to start a grad program at another school and is getting married a mere year after I am.  Did you hear me?  One of my former MIDDLE SCHOOL students is now going to grad school and getting married.  Encountering her brought on this strange, contradictory mix of feelings: I felt super old, I felt like I had come a long way since the years of my first teaching job, yet I also felt like somewhat of a late bloomer.  All these years and you're still in school? You're finally getting married, wow, can you believe it? In some ways, I feel like I've been precocious throughout my life, and in other ways, I feel like I've been the last to arrive.  This funny thing called life.

I never anticipated how ambivalent I would feel about having a wedding ceremony.  By extension, I never anticipated how ambivalent I would feel about the idea of getting married itself.

I was talking to my very good friend who's been there and done that and she said that sometimes you have to stop and ask yourself a few questions to remind yourself of why you're making/you've made whatever decision to stop the ambivalence from overwhelming you.

Do you want to have a ceremony?  
Answer: yes

Even though I have justice of the peace fantasies, even now, I've convinced myself that ultimately, this ceremony is going to be worth it.  It is going to be a rare moment where the people most important to us in our lives are going to be there, all together.  It's going to be stressful, I know...I mean, it already is, but I'm going to be glad that I shared this time with everyone and I'm thankful that so many people have gone out of their way and made sacrifices to come and celebrate with us.

Do you want to be married?
Answer: yes

I've always wanted to share my life with someone.  It wasn't so long ago that I sometimes struggled with loneliness.  I learned how to cope with it and I think I even got used to it, but every once in a while, I would be reminded that having a life partner was something I longed for.  I also have always wanted to have a family, and having and raising children is not something I've ever dreamed of doing without a husband.

Do you want to marry your fiancé?
Answer: yes

I love my fiancé, and he meets my needs.  He loves me the way I've always dreamed of being loved by someone, he is Spirit-filled and committed to being a part of the church together, he wants to have a family, and he is willing to try.  Of course, there are many other qualities about him that are positive and many other things about us both which bring us together, but the things I mentioned are the necessary ones in order for me to commit to someone and stay committed to them for life.

(Sigh.)  Everything is happening so fast.  I think everything will have to just happen, and then I will take time to reflect on it so I can process it all.  It's just difficult to completely process things right now.

Repondez, S'il Vous Plait

R.S.V.P.  A common abbreviation for the French repondez, s'il vous plait.  Often used within the context of event planning, a common courtesy asked of those invited to "respond," indicating to the event planner whether said invitee is attending.

Literally: Respond, if it pleases you.

Naturally: Respond, if you please.

Commonly: Respond, please.

Chantell-ly: For the love of God, let me know BEFORE the RSVP deadline whether you're coming to my wedding so that I can rent the right amount chairs and have the right amount of food.  I certainly don't want to be short of chairs, space or food, but neither do I want to spend more than I actually need to on chairs, space or food.

So, the RSVP deadline was April 15.  And, yes, I am about to get Bridezilly and ranty because this junk gets on my nerves.

To be fair, I get it.  My wedding is not the center of the universe, and people have lives and people get busy and people forget.  The RSVP deadline was on April 15, after all.  I'm sure folks who were waiting till the last minute, as we all so often do, were more concerned about how much they might get back from Uncle Sam than whether there'd be enough salmon pinwheels for them to snack on after my ceremony.  I get it.  I do.

For example, a professor of ours who was invited desired to come, but when she tried to register herself and her guest via our website and found she couldn't because it was the day of the deadline, she let us know and we gladly added her.  That, I get.  A mentor of mine who has assured me she was coming, told me about the dress she bought for it and told me about the tie she bought for her son did not RSVP personally on the website, but since I knew she was coming, I registered her and her family myself.  That, I also get.

This is what I don't get: People who have said BUPKIS to me, not via text, not via email, not via FB message, not via any means of communication and then when my dear mother (bless her heart) emails you (subject line: "Failure to RSVP") to verify, you respond, "Yes, we're planning on attending."  WHAT?  Who is "we"?  How many of you are "we"? When were you planning to let anybody know? Vague as heck after-the-fact responders.  This is what I don't get: People who have RSVPed as soon as the invitation hit your mailbox, then you found out later that you and your guest(s) wouldn't be able to make it after all, but you say BUPKIS to me and just mention it to my mom in passing.  NOT COOL.  Here's what else I don't get: People who told me to my face you wouldn't be able to make it all apologetic, then a couple of days after the RSVP deadline, you just happen to run into my parents talking about some, "Oh, we're going to make it after all!" NAWL.

I love my people.  I love my family.  I love my church family.  I love my friends.  I love y'all.  For real.  I want you to come to my wedding.  I do.  If I didn't want you to come, I wouldn't have invited you.  But folks out here in these streets treating my wedding like a potluck at Ebenezer Baptist Church somewhere your grandmama and auntie go to every 5th Sunday.  No, ma'am.  I say no to this.  I say seet yo'self down to this.  I say all the nawls to this.  I rebuke the spirit of repondez s'il vous plait negligence in Jaysus name!  Just let a sista know.  That's all I ask.  Let a sista know.  And not the day of.

It just frustrates me that people do not get what all goes into planning a wedding.  People don't have a concept of what it means to be less than a month away from The Big Day and needing to turn in final numbers to your caterers and rental places.  People can't grasp the fact that we're also doing 1 million other things and part of the reason we set the RSVPs up the way we did is so that we didn't have to keep track of who said they were coming and who didn't and whose cousin can't make it and all of that rigmarole because WE DON'T HAVE TIME.  Both of us are planning a wedding smack dab in the middle of PhD programs at the end of the semester.  Ain't nobody got time for that.  Nobody understands that.

But one day they or one of their kids will have to plan a wedding, too...then it'll dawn on them.  But I get that too.  Some things you can't understand until you are staring it dead in the face.

T-minus 30 days, a.k.a. The Unveiling of Off the Chainness

Today I woke up and was like, yup.

Today is April 16.  Today is exactly a month away from May 16, otherwise known as The Big Day.

And, by the way, the RSVP cut off date, otherwise known as Tax Day, was yesterday.  But back to today.

Did people fail to RSVP as if my wedding is a barbecue that you can just show up to if you can make it and bring cousin Junebug along with you cuz he ain't have nothin to do?

Did people text reminding me that it's a month away/asking me if kids are allowed/asking if I'm having a "bachelorette party" and suggesting when I should have it/telling me that they might not be able to make it?

Do I still have mad quizzes to grade and do I have to figure out registration and health insurance because I'm not going to be on assistantship since I won this fellowship?

Do I want to crawl into a hole, find a lamp, rub it, and have a magic wedding genie pop out to magically do everything?

Do I want to scream "You lie!" at anyone who dares suggest that The Big Day is "my" day?

Did I squirm in my seat during a meeting today when my upcoming wedding was mentioned and then the conversation quickly turned to name-changing conventions among married women in the U.S. and in Latin America and did I desperately hope no one would ask me whether I was going to change my own name?

Yes.  Yes, I say.  Yes, to all of it.

I know I need to relax and stop being a control freak and just keep repeating to myself over and over "Everything's going to be fine.  Everything's going to come together."  That's what I've been doing, truth be told.

It's just that there's something about today that feels like the beginning of the end.  Like, that the outpouring of the wrath of the wedding gods has officially commenced.  Like, as if this were a 1960s movie set during the Roman Empire and some cart-riding plebeian on some kind of journey just looked up at the darkening sky and a lightning bolt flashed and thunder rolled and this foreboding music began to play and he said aloud, "It begins!  It begins!"

I know I'm going to be happy.  But can I hit a fast-forward button through this end of semester/wedding planning/crunch time madness and not hit play again until my dad says, "You may now kiss the bride"?  That's right, my dad is officiating and my man is going to have to lay one on me dead in my dad's face.  But we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Wedding Jitters?

So, the day is very quickly approaching.

I feel like everything about my perceptions and how I feel things are perceived are heightened.  Things bother me much more easily and things easily make me cry.  Like today, I wanted to leave Starbucks because this old lady interrogated my fiancé about his t-shirt.  "What does that say?  I'm just trying to read what it says. What does that mean?"  Like, who are you?  It's the name of a band you've never heard of and why do you even care other than feigning "innocent curiosity" in order to be nosy and judgmental, you old bag?

I realize that I am also super sensitive about how I feel people perceive us as a couple.  I'm all about noticing how awkward-seeming people are who I think are either uncomfortable with an interracial couple or just don't know how to place us.  So they either just act weird and/or act super nice and go with the fall back "oh, my God you guys are so CUTE."  And I'm over here like, um...thanks?  I'm willing to admit it's probably largely in my head.  In any event, I should just saddle up because I don't imagine it'll be any less awkward when little bambinos come along.

I had a bridesmaid dress-related moment yesterday.  I just had to sit and cry for a minute and then just take a deep breath and get it together because what else can you do except just hope that everything will somehow work out?  And it will work out.  It wasn't even a huge deal.  I just want everything to be done and planned and set up and decided and paid for.  And it isn't yet.  But it will be.

Sometimes I look deeply into my fiancé's eyes.  Not just because I'm in love with him, which I am, but I'm trying to grasp something I feel I haven't grasped yet about him and don't know if I ever will.  It's not like I don't know him or don't feel comfortable with him.  It's not like I don't know his habits, likes and dislikes, what makes him laugh, what annoys him.  It's not like I don't know what his goals are in life, what he's passionate about.  It's just the realization that you can never 100% "know" a person.  You can't read their minds.  You can't go back in time and somehow become them and live their entire lives as them up until this point.  He is a separate person and I can't control what he does and what he does is going to affect me.  It's not like I'm afraid he's going to suddenly do a bunch of weird stuff...I mean, if I felt that way, I wouldn't marry him.  It's just that there's a sense of the unknown about entering into this phase of life.  I don't know what being married is truly like.  And I won't know until I'm there.

The Couple of Things I Was Thinking About Today

So, I turned 33 without major incident and my sweet fiancé turned 28 a few days later.  Yeah, I thought I was attracted to older guys, but this young'un comes along and all of that goes out the window.  A cougar and a Bridezilla rolled into one.  Ah, well.  I had a nice birthday dinner.  See?

Anyway, I was thinking about a couple of things today. The first is this: You don't really know until you're there.

What I'm saying is that I've had ideas about things.  How things were supposed to be.  How things were supposed to happen.  Well, being in a relationship, for starters.  To say that I idealized things is accurate, but incomplete.  It's not as simple as idealizing.  It's more like, there were things I didn't anticipate.  And by that, I mean challenges as well as benefits.  What I'm saying is that things are much more dynamic than a two-dimensional, linear sequence of events.  It's like I had this static, predictable, sequential model in my head, and what's happened (happening) is this multidimensional, infinite set that has a pattern I haven't quite figured out yet.  It's like, what I thought would happen (or was supposed to happen) is 1+1=2, but what ended up happening is pi. You see?  I can only speak metaphorically because it's the only way to make what I want to express have any semblance of sense.  It's exhilarating but scary because I'm giving up a bit of the control that I'm so used to having.  Or so used to thinking that I have.  Being a control freak is next to impossible in a relationship. In the end, I'm constantly reminded of my need for God.  I believe that every step we take is somehow tailored to remind us that we need Him and that we were never meant to go it alone.

The second thing is this: I hope I never forget how it was.

I hope I never forget the loneliness I struggled with at times.  I hope I never forget an extremely low point in my life where getting out of bed was what I dreaded every single morning.  I hope I never forget the longing that I feel now every time I have to say goodnight to my fiancé.  It is so ridiculously easy to take things for granted.  It's scandalously easy.  I don't want to fall into that trap.  I don't ever want to take my husband-to-be for granted.  I want to treasure every minute I have to spend with him and not just assume that his presence in my life is a given.  The good has definitely outweighed the bad in my few decades on Earth.  But remembering the negative is just a reminder to cherish the positive.

Tomorrow's my birthday. Yay!

Tomorrow's my birthday and I'm going to be older than I've ever been.  Hee, hee.  And, omg, it's my last birthday as a single lady.  What?

I'm excited because my sweet future husband is really excited about whatever it is that he got me as a gift, and because we're getting dressed up and going to dinner.  I love getting dressed up and going to dinner.  I'm going to wear a dress he's never seen me in before.  Heh, heh.  I teach tomorrow, but I'm bringing candy to class to make it at least somewhat celebratory.  Good candy, too.

You know, what's funny is that my birthday and my sweet future husband's birthday are only four days apart.  I think it's another sign that we were meant to be.  We could just have a birthday week together.

I hope no matter how old I get, that I always feel special on my birthday.

This Thing Called Life

It's a phrase that, when our pastor says it, always causes my fiancé and me to exchange knowing looks and smiles.  It's one of several pastoral catch phrases.  I told my fiancé we should make a pastoral phrase bingo card to play during church.

Anyhoo, I digress.

In this thing called life, things happen that you never expected would happen.  Things don't happen that you always thought would (or should) happen.  It's just part of how it goes.

My 33rd birthday is right around the corner.  Do I need to let that sink in for a minute?  I am going to be the age our Lord Jesus Christ was when He died on the old rugged cross.  But He rose.  Halleluyer.

I was contemplating my birthday's proximity out loud in front of my students and admitted that I have about 15 years on most of them in there.  I teach Elementary Spanish, so most of my students are freshmen.  They looked at me wide eyed.  "No, way, Profesora!"  I was like, "I can show you my driver's license."  You know what they say, tho...black don't crack.  I ain't mad.

Ahem.  Again, I digress.

So, I'm getting older, people usually think I'm 6-10 years younger, and I think I'm ready for 33.  It's a pivotal year, no?  I've got one more year of writing my dissertation before I become a Dr., and I've got 52 days before I become a Mrs.  I can't complain.

Can I just get mushy and gushy and say how much I LURVE my man?  He's what I need.  That's all I can say.  He's what I need.  I never imagined in a million years that I would ever marry this dude.  I'm telling you, I remember seeing him for the first time offhandedly in the computer lab a couple years ago before we had anything to do with one another, and if some angel of light had come down from heaven right then to tell me he was my future husband, I would have been like, "Whuuuut?  Get back to heaven and go saddown somewhere."

I never imagined in a million years that I would get married while in this PhD program.  But here we are.  So much can change in this thing called life.

I applied for a particular dissertation fellowship in hopes that next year I would be able to write my dissertation without any teaching responsibilities.  It's a nationally recognized program that provides funding for a year and also opens many professional doors for the awardees.  I went for it knowing that it was a long shot.  Knowing that it was super competitive, that the odds were against me, that I probably wouldn't get it, but that would be okay, that—

I found out yesterday that I'm an awardee!

Well, well, well.  Something about this thing called life.  I was ecstatic.  I was floored.  I never imagined that I would actually get it.  My super awesome, amazing genius woman professor who is now at Harvard applied for it back in her day and she didn't get it the first time.  I thought if she didn't get it the first time around, then my chances are next to none.

It just goes to show you that you never know.  God does, though.  He keeps trying to show me that I just need to relax.  That I just need to keep moving forward and to enjoy my journey.

Bridezilla

Ugh. I apologize in advance.

1. In less than two months from now, I'm getting married.  Yup.  I have a counter on my blog.  I am so aware of it.  I wake up every morning and think about it.  You (yes, You, probably well-meaning, nameless, composite, passive-aggressive target) reminding me of it is NOT HELPING.  Yes, I know it's soon.  Yes, I'm excited.  Yes, I'm nervous.  Like, what do you hope to accomplish by asking me these things and stating the obvious?  What reaction to these inquiries do you hope to elicit?  You are making me more nervous.  And if you can visibly see that your prattle is making me more nervous, your saying "Oh, I don't mean to make you more nervous!  Oh, I don't mean to overwhelm you!" is even more infuriating, because what else did you expect? Did you think I was going to break into song and dance out of gratefulness for being reminded of what is already branded into my brain?

2. MORE people have tried to invite themselves.  What is this?  A self-invitation epidemic that is plaguing brides-to-be like some sort of annoying, presumptuous, clueless Ebola virus?  Yes, I DO mind that you would like to come.  We have a limited guest list and limited money.  Period.  Ugh, I've already extended invitations to people I probably shouldn't have. People out here acting like going to my wedding is the last step in the plan of salvation.  Go sit yourself down somewhere and stop trying to get all up in my lifespace.

3. And of the people who have been invited, I have this sinking feeling that some are going to fail to RSVP on time (before April 15) and then ghettoly be like, "Aw, you knew I was planning to come!" and then show up and get extra helpings of spinach and artichoke dip.  Nawl.  We need headcounts, people.  We need cold, hard numbers so that we'll know how much seating we'll need for the ceremony and reception.  We need cold, hard numbers so we'll know how much food to pay for.  How much and how many of every little thing we're going to need for everyone.  There is a very simple, streamlined process mentioned on the invitation and outlined on my wedding website for you to sign the heck up.  It only takes a few clicks and typing strokes.  I already have 100 million things buzzing around in my brain.  Trying to remember whether so-and-so mentioned they were coming is not one of them.  We've set that sucker to disallow RSVPs after the cutoff date, so if you're planning to come, let my lovely little online registration process know, not me.  No, we were not dealing with no send in a response card madness.  Extra postage and having to keep up with that junk.  We are living in 2015.

4. I am in a passionate hate affair with myself because I am getting NOTHING done.  I have a dissertation to write.  I have chapters due.  I have things to accomplish, and here I am, inching along like a slothful slug because I can't compartmentalize.  This is beyond procrastination.  Okay...maybe I can give myself a millimeter of credit.  I did turn in a chapter this semester, I am presenting at a conference next month, and I do have an article being published in a forthcoming edited volume.  But it's still woefully embarrassing how far behind I am.  I HAVE to finish in May 2016.  I absolutely have to.

When Things Start to Look Up

A couple of months ago, my fiancé felt led to make a few sandwiches, give them out to the homeless downtown and pray for them.  He asked if I wanted to join him, and I did.

Everyone was very gracious, accepted what we offered them and allowed us to pray with them.  One man in particular was very responsive.  We'll call him Tony.  He sits out on a bench not too far from the Starbucks downtown.  He talked about a friend of his who comes by to chat with him, and I said, "I know it means a lot to you to have someone to talk to."  And he replied, "It doesn't mean a lot, it means everything."  He talked about how people walk by, ignoring him everyday, not even acknowledging him.  He told us about a student who belittled him yelling at him to "get a job."  He said, "I told him, 'Give me one.' If someone offered me a job, I'd take it."  He said how much it means, not for someone to give him money, but just to acknowledge him as a person.  As a human being.  We prayed with him and he cried, saying he was so grateful for our prayers.  From that day on, anytime I've passed a homeless person, I've said hello or smiled and nodded, even if I didn't have anything to give, just to acknowledge them.

We saw Tony again today, and guess what?  He told us someone offered him a job.  It's a part time job doing custodial work, but it's something.  He said soon he's going to open a bank account.  And then his next goal will be to look for housing.  What amazing news to hear!

I love it when things start to look up for people who really need things to start looking up for them.  It makes me feel like they're looking up for me, too.